Away and back again

I'll keep this one short, and put up the relevant pictures later. I've spent the last two weeks involved in the East Central Illinois Nanotechnology Teacher Enhancement Program, which is a very long name for a workshop designed to get current ideas in the science of the very, very small into the hands of classroom 6-12th grade science teachers, so that we can start putting it into our classrooms. I've got an assignment of working on developing a classroom activity or resource based on some of the things we did, and plan to head back in tomorrow afternoon and Thursday morning to do some work on it that I couldn't do last week due to some equipment scheduling conflicts.

We spent the weekend in Chicago, with the primary motive of going to see the Harry Potter exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry with a couple of Kirstin's friends from Lawrence. They brought their two girls (ages 5 and 1), so Leo went to the exhibit with us (rather than us going solo in the evening which is probably what we would have done had we gone on our own).
I proudly wore my Marauder shirt, which I believe was the reason that I was the last person picked for the Sorting Hat, which (correctly) put me into Ravenclaw. (Memo to self: need to add the shirt and scarf to my tie.)

Leo had a good time. I think his favorite areas were what the museum refers to as Farm Tech, where they had full-sized modern tractors and combines (one of each) that you can climb up to the driver's seat of, and the Idea Factory, which is the little kids' area. As usual, he did a major meltdown when it was time to leave, although I think the lack of nap contributed heavily. (Let it also be stated for the record that he liked the space center as well.)

We stayed both nights with my Aunt Nancy & Uncle Jack, and the visit was made a little more interesting (in a good way) by the fact that Uncle Jack's mom was also visiting them. I'd met her once before, many years back, when she still lived in Southfield, MI (she now lives the Minneapolis area, as does one of Uncle Jack's brothers), but Kirstin & Leo had never met her. I think she was flattered that when we got there on Friday night and Kirstin was telling Leo to say good night to everybody that he went over and gave her a hug all on his own.

Today was spent on the installation of the new windows. There's some touch-up work to be done at a later date -- the key lock and screen for the new patio door weren't lining up properly with the main door, and there's some question about the aluminum wrap around the exteriors to keep everything maintenance free, but little to none of that requires that the installers come back in.

I spend next week doing curriculum writing for the district, rewriting the standard chemistry course and creating an honors chemistry course, both of which are likely to pilot next year (2010-11) rather than this year (2009-2010), mostly because of timing. We're leaving that Friday to head to Wausau to see Kirstin's folks, coming back on the 10th, and starting school for me during the week of the 17th.